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Mar

[Bootscreen Animation Roundup, Part 1] 5 Bootscreens That Will Really Turn Your Phone On

Posted by Brad Ganley in Android OS, Bootscreen Animation Series, Development, Other Reviews, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Let's face it: It sucks waiting for your phone to turn on. It takes too long, and you're forced to watch what is essentially a commercial for your carrier and hardware manufacturer. Well, no more! Here are five bootscreen animations that will make rebooting your phone a much celebrate event! Have your friends gather round and watch at the spectacle that is your phone powering on! Gasp at the twists and turns of pretty images on your screen before your device has even turned on!

If you have no idea how to modify your bootscreen, check out our bootscreen primer.

Mar

[Tutorial] How To Change The Bootscreen On Your Android Phone And Make Waiting For It To Turn On Suck Less

Posted by Brad Ganley in Android OS, Bootscreen Animation Series, Development, Tips & Tutorials

Last Updated: June 8th, 2011

Let's face it: as Android users, we like options. One of the greatest things about this platform is the insane level of customization possible, especially if you don't mind getting your hands a little dirty. With some readily available tools (all of which are extremely free) and the proper knowledge, you can make your android phone do almost anything you could possibly want and make it look however you want. What we'll be talking about today is the bootscreen.

The bootscreen is that animation that plays during your phone's (admittedly long) power-on sequence. It's really easy to switch it out and, provided you've found one you like, I can show you how to change it.

Feb

Official Gingerbread ROM Leaked For European And Asian Samsung Galaxy S i9000 Phones

Posted by David Ruddock in Development, Galaxy S, Gingerbread 2.3, News, Samsung

The XDA forums are on fire this afternoon after a user posted a thread linking to a Polish Android forum, claiming to contain a download for an official Gingerbread build for the Samsung Galaxy S i9000. Before you get too excited, let me reiterate: this is not for US devices, and I would not recommend trying it on your Captivate/Vibrant/Fascinate/Epic.

That said, the handy development community will get their paws on this and have a field day, so you may be seeing unofficial Gingerbread ROMs for US phones (aside from CyanogenMod 7) start floating around on XDA in the next week or so.

Feb

If Your Motorola XOOM Is Rooted It Will Not Be Upgraded To 4G LTE Unless You Un-Root, Says Moto

Posted by David Ruddock in Development, Motorola, News, Tips & Tutorials, Verizon Wireless, XOOM

Well, the title explains it pretty well, but I'll provide you some documented evidence:

That's right, folks. Sending in your XOOM to Motorola while it's rooted will get it sent right back. Motorola will not provide 4G LTE upgrades to XOOM devices that have been rooted, plain and simple.

A forum moderator in the same Motorola support thread indicates that it's not quite as hard-line as the first responder indicated, and that your XOOM simply must be stock in terms of software functionality when Motorola receives it. Presumably, this means a flash back to factory settings and software will allow your previously booted 'n rooted XOOM to be upgraded.

Jan

Android 3.0 Honeycomb Gets Huge Feature Breakdown, Preview SDK Released

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Development, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News

The Android Developers Blog just announced the availability of a "preview" of the upcoming Android 3.0 SDK. Developers can start getting their Honeycomb on immediately, as the preview is available via the Android SDK and AVD manager as part of the Android SDK.

But even more exciting is the fact that the Android Developers page has been updated with a plethora of information regarding Honeycomb and its features. Where to begin?

What You Can See

The brief breakdown of Honeycomb's new elements according to Google:

New "holographic" UI
Bottom "system bar" for global status and notifications
Action bar for in-application controls
Redesigned home screen customization
Revamped "recent apps" menu
New keyboard
Improved text selection/copy/paste (multiselect, clipboard, and drag-and-drop)
Streamlined USB file transferring
Completely updated set of standard apps, including: Gmail, Calendar, Browser, Gallery, and Contacts

Under The Hood

Developers have reason to be hugely excited about Honeycomb, as it's bringing some major (awesome) changes to the Android OS.

Dec

Android Devs To Manufacturers and Carriers: It's Not Rooting, It's Openness

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Editorials, News

The Android dev team has generally been assumed to have a passive stance on rooting and unlocking Android devices. That is, do it if you want - we won't stop you. And there's certainly evidence abound supporting this - Google's Nexus One could be unlocked via a simple ADB (Android Device Bridge) command: fastboot oem unlock. The same is true of the Nexus S.

Of course, it only makes sense - Google doesn't want to put any unnecessary barriers between Android developers and the open source OS, especially on developer phones.

But a new post on the official Android Developers Blog shows that team Android is a little more concerned with how their operating system is being used than some of us may have previously assumed.

Aug

The Nexus One Is Dead — Long Live The Nexus One: Google Crowns Nexus One Android Developer Phone 3

Posted by David Ruddock in News, Nexus One (Passion)

While the Nexus One has officially been discontinued stateside on Google’s website, it seems Google’s first (and probably only) phone will be headed to the cluttered desks of more Android developers as Android’s newest official developer phone.

The Nexus One has clearly enjoyed preferential treatment from the Android team since its release, but the decision to dethrone the Google Ion (aka ADP 2, HTC Magic, MyTouch 3G) is more than anything a statement to third-party developers: Get away from previous generation phones. And with Éclair now running on nearly 60% of Android devices, it’s no wonder Google wants to move the Android development platform forward.

Mar

Android Developers Take Note: Sprint Posted Dev Guides And Code For Supporting 4G/3G/WiFi Switching, Front-facing Camera, HDMI

Posted by Android Police Team in Development, EVO 4G (Supersonic), HTC, Sprint

Following yesterday's announcement of the first 4G handset for Sprint, the company earlier today posted a bunch of new helpful information to their Android Developers site to guide developers around the newly introduced features never before seen on an Android phone, or even *any* mobile phone.

Here is the new stuff that what we found there:

general documentation updated with references to HTC EVO 4G
4G Developer Guide - Sprint_HTC_EVO_4G_Developer_S_Guide

Sprint's developer guide for the HTC EVO 4G handset provides best practices on:

detecting different network types (4G, 3G, WI-FI) and handling transitions as they occur

utilizing HDMI output in your application

how to incorporate the forward facing camera into your application

using some of the HTML 5.0 tags in your web page including Location and Video